I am often asked "What exactly is a Blog?"  That part is simple: it is a log of someone's thoughts, ideas, and viewpoints on topics of interest to them - and presumably the Blog's readers.  Blogs exist on the Web so they are Web Logs - but that term is used for the long and very boring log files of a website's activities so WebLog became Blog.

I think the question is really a starting point for a couple more:

1. What is the purpose of a Blog?
2. What will a Blog do for me and/or my business?

The purpose of business blogging (as opposed to personal blogging which may have no discernible purpose whatsoever) is primarily to increase one's reputation.  If a Blog is well-written, informative, and thought-provoking, then readers will conclude that the writer is "cool".  They may think, "I don't always agree with X but he always tells it as he sees it."  So X is now seen as a speaker of the truth (at least as far as X sees it).

From there it is a short leap to the concept that the same readers will see X as an authority on subjects they know less about because they trust him to speak the truth.  If X's Blog is representing his business, then it too is now part-beneficiary of that trust.  So good blogging positions both the blogger and his or her company as being people whom the readers would trust with their business.  Blogging doesn't (nor should it be used to) sell products or services - but it makes the selling all that much easier.

So as a final thought, a question of my own: What isn't a Blog?

It isn't a newsletter.  They usually have an introduction from a real person and the rest is news/information, often sterile and usually with no subjective slant to it.  Newsletters often (and should) have calls to action in them.  A Blog rarely does. It is very subjective, It is the Sunday paper, if you will, with editorials on the news rather than the news itself.

Hopefully, I have managed to follow my own advice with this initial post!